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"I quite agree," she was saying, "a Channel Tunnel would be very useful and ... and so convenient, too. I've often said that to Jimphy, but dear Jimphy doesn't pretend to understand these things!" She had turned to him once and, in a whisper, had said, "Which of you is in love with Mary?" but he had pretended to be wooden and hard of understanding.
"I wonder why it is that I'm full of sympathy and understanding and tact in my books, and such a clumsy fool in life!" He entered the stalls, and as he did so, Lady Cecily rose to join him. Jimphy had already gone to the bar. He held the curtain for her and she passed through. "Isn't it clever?" she said, speaking of the play, and he nodded his head.
There was something very fine and dashing and Byronic and adventurous in a man with a spacious spirit, but after all, women were women, and one did not like to think of adventuring women. He wanted to have Cecily to himself ... he did not wish to share her with Gilbert or with Jimphy or with any one, and it hardly seemed decent that Cecily should wish to spread her affections over three men.
Lensley and Boltt followed Jimphy eagerly to Lady Cecily's table. Lensley was glad to sit with her: Boltt was glad to be certain of his supper. Lensley enjoyed listening to Cecily's babble because he could always be certain of getting something out of her speech that would just fit into his next novel: Boltt liked his contiguity to members of the governing class.
Jimphy's very morose this evening. He's thirty-one to-day, and he thinks that old age is creeping over him!" "All right," said Gilbert gloomily, and then he and Henry went to their seats. "Who is Jimphy?" said Henry, as they walked down the stairs into the auditorium. "Her husband. Didn't you notice something hanging around in the vestibule while we were talking to her?" "No.
You made me go out of the box with Jimphy, and as I went, I saw you putting your hand out to touch Gilbert, and I heard you calling him, 'Gilbert, darling. ..." She laughed, but did not speak. "And I was frightfully jealous. Gilbert's my best friend, Cecily, but I hated him that night. I suppose ... oh, I don't know!" "What were you going to say!" she asked.
Oh, but what of that? Poor Jimphy! He had not wished for much from life ... and sometimes it had seemed that he had got much more than he needed.... "The best of us can't do more than he did," Henry thought as he walked home. "A man can't give more than he's got, and Jimphy's given everything!"
Mr. Boltt said, and there was some sniffiness in his tones. He was accustomed to lengthy reviews on the day of publication, and it annoyed him to think that there was some one in the world, some one, too, with whom he was acquainted, who did not know that the publication of one of his books was an event. "I can't think how you writing chaps keep it up," said Jimphy.
Henry did not wish to go and have a drink, and he paused irresolutely until Lady Cecily suddenly leant forward and said with a laugh, "Yes, do go with Jimphy, Mr. Quinn. Gilbert and I have such a lot to say to each other, and Jimphy's not in a good temper. Are you, Jimphy, dear? You see," she went on, "he wanted to go to the Empire, but I made him bring me here!... Do cheer up, Jimphy, dear!
That's where I got all this brown!..." She laughed and pointed to her cheeks. "I'm so glad to get back. The country bores me stiff. Nothing to see but the scenery. Oh dear!" She almost yawned at her remembrance of the country. "And things are always biting me or stinging me. I'm miserable all the time I'm there!" "Then why do you go?" said Gilbert. "Jimphy wanted to go.